Communications

Communication is a central point of any organisation regardless of size or industry. Globalization requires companies to communicate and collaborate across time, space and cultural boundaries. Advances in technology have allowed us to be able to communicate in a variety of ways but the proliferation of voice and messaging options can impact both team and individual productivity. Bottlenecks in decision making, duplicated channels and full mailboxes are indicative that having many communications media may be working against, rather than for, employees. If unstructured, communication tools complicate escalation and resolution and limit auditing, causing an organisation to struggle, improve or change its business processes. The challenge facing organisations is to utilise both new and existing technologies to connect both office based and remote staff, and drive forward business performance and competitiveness.

Communications allows an organisation to align all of its communication platforms with its strategic business objectives. Overall, the market is at an early stage and over the past twelve months, the interest and hype around unified communications has grown but the executive management of the largest organisations are somewhat unsure of the effectiveness of such systems and whether such a large and expensive investment will bring value to the enterprise.

CXO Europe aims to provide valuable guidance to the leading executives in Europe in order to make informed investments in communications. The focus will be on how communications can lead to an organisation to maintaining its competitive edge in the ever changing marketplace. CXO Europe will provide a roadmap for organisations looking to maximise the effectiveness of their enterprise communications and business process performance.

Section Breakdown
Unified Communications IPBX Soft phones VoIP Network Switches Network Infrastructure Servers	Rich Media Communications Audio Video Web Presence/ IM (mobile) Conferencing Server Provider (CSP) Groupware Convergence

Topics under Discussion

Unified Communications The concept of Unified Communications Unified Communications: Just another buzzword? What does Unified Communications technology offer? The ability of Unified Communications to reduce “human latency” in business processes The difficulty in building a business case behind Unified Communications Developing an enterprise Unified Communications strategy Achieving the desired results from a strategy

Rich Media Communications Next generation tools for improving communications capabilities; where phone and e-mail left off Cut cost and increase productivity Preparing for global markets and competition Fostering open information access and establishing a secure distributed decision-making process Not just a replacement for travel

Contributors

Andrew Davis, Senior Analyst and Managing Partner, Wainhouse Research
Erica Ruguillies, Principal Analyst, Forrester
Mark Levitt, VP Collaborative Computing, IDC
Dominic Trotta, CIO Barclays

Associations

Wainhouse Research
European Engineering Consortium

Von Enterprise produced by Pulver Media

Circulation Breakdown

• C-level: CIO, CEO, CFO, CTO, CISO, COO, CCC (Chief Conferencing Champion), Chief Communications Officer
• Business Management: SVP/VP/Director- Finance, Operations, Sales, Marketing, Technology, Security, Information Solutions
• IT Management: Product, Project, Architects & Infrastructure Experts, Business Continuity, Communications Director, Networking Director

Links

Perfect 10
Erica Rugullies, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, outlines a 10-step collaboration strategy work plan.

Lights, Conferencing Action [pdf]
Videoconferencing technology has numerous cost and time saving benefits for businesses. But it can also aid the creative process - as its application in the glamorous moviemaking industry demonstrates. By Neil Davey.

Competitive Advantage [pdf]
The CEO's guide to the connected enterprise.